Ridge



(No Model.)

J. B. MOGKRIDGE. MEANS FOR SECURING RAILROADS AND SHIPPERS AGAINST-LOSS 0F FREIGHT.

,Patented Mar. 14, 1893.

PIER 29 NR.

-.R.R.Co. UNIUN LINE JOHN DOE, Agent.

W/ TNESSES UNITED STATE PATENT OFFICE.

JOSEPH BABBITT MOCKRIDGE, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

MEANS FOR SECURING RAILROADS AND SHIPPERS AGAINST LOSS OF FREIGHT.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 493,595, dated March 14, 189 3.

Application filed March 30, 1892. Serial No. 427,093. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JOSEPH BABBITT MOGK- RIDGE, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and Improved Means for Securing Against Loss of Freight, of which the followingis a full, clear, and exact description.

The object of the invention is to provide a new and improved means for securing railroads and shippers of merchandise against loss of freight, by preventing the merchandise from being sent to wrong places, and keeping a record of the merchandise loaded into a railroad car, so that it can be easily traced, until it finally arrives at its proper destination.

The invention consists in means by which the shipping of the merchandise is controlled in such a manner as to prevent the merchandise from being loaded into the wrong car at the shipping station, and secondly in case it should happen that a package is wrongly loaded into a car, then to detect at once the respective car into which it was wrongly placed.

In the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification the means are shown as applied toa pier forminga railroad freight receiving station, but the means are equally applicable for any freight receiving station or any place where freight is loaded into cars, marine vessels, or other means of transportation.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification, in which similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the figures.

Figure 1 is a plan view of the pier showing the arrangement of my means for checking freight. Fig. 2 is a face view of a shipping receipt printed on according to my means; and Fig. 3 is a face View of the printed check for the merchandise on the shipping receipt, and which is also an indicator of the car into which the merchandise is loaded.

In loading merchandise into railroad cars, as heretofore practiced, the packages, parcels, boxes, &c., destined for a certain place are frequently loaded into a car going to a different point, and if such mistake occurred the lost package, parcel, box, &c., was hard to trace and usually not found until the agent of the station receiving the car containing the wrong parcel reported the fact. If the receiving agent, or his subordinates, be dishonest, the package can be abstracted at this place without danger of detection, as no proof exists that the missing package, parcel, box, 850., was in this car. On the contrary, all the evidence in the possession of the railroad officials tends to show that the parcel was in the proper car and abstracted therefrom while in transit or otherwise. With my improved means the above difficulties are overcome, a full record is kept of the merchandise loaded, also the car into which it was placed by the stevedore, irrespective of whetherthc car was the right one to receive the merchandise or not.

As shown in Fig. 1, the pier A, forms a freight receiving station and on its sides are located the usual floats B and 0, containing the cars D and E, of which the cars D are temporarily numbered by the clerk in charge of the station, consecutively from 1 to 12 inclusive, and in a like manner, the cars E are temporarily numbered consecutively from 13 to 24 inclusive. On the pier is located a printing apparatus F, for printing on the shipping receipt G, series of letters and numerals H, according to the merchandise indicated on the shipping receipt, and as hereinafter more fully explained, and the said machinealso prints a check I, containing aseries of letters and numerals H corresponding to the series H on the shipping receipt G. The check I is simultaneously printed and discharged from the machine at the time the shipping receipt Greceives its indicatingnumerals and letters.

The printing apparatus F may be of any approved construction for the purpose mentioned,but I prefer a machine such as shown and described in the application for Letters Patent of the United States, Serial No. 427,165, filed by Julius G. Hocke and Joseph B. Mockridge, under date of March 31, 1892.

It is understood that the clerk in charge of the freight receiving station and operating the machine F temporarily designates the cars D and E by the numerals as indicated on the drawings, and further designates the several cars so numbered for receiving freight to certain points on the road. For instance, the cars temporarily numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, are designated to go to Chicago, While cars 5, 6, 7, 8, are to receive freight for Cleveland, only, while cars 9 and 10 receive freight for Columbus, Ohio, 11, 12, to Salamanca, 13, 14 to Utica, 15, 16, 17 and 18, Rochester, &c. All the freight passing into the receiving station is transported past the clerk in charge of the apparatus F, and the merchandise indicated on the usual shipping receipt G, as shown in Fig. 2 is sent to the respective car, in this case to car 4, going to Chicago, and to which the shipping receipt. directs the merchandise to be sent.

The shipping receipt at the time the merchandise is brought to the machineF is printed on with the letter D, the numeral 27 and the numeral 4: in one row, to indicate the one box of patterns named in the ship ping receipt. Then the next row of characters D 28& is printed to indicate the package of screws; then under this row is printed D 29 4, indicating one case of books. At the same time that the printing of the series I'I takes place on the shipping receipt, a check I is printed by the said machine, containing the like letters and numerals in similarly arranged rows, as plainly shown in Fig. 3. This check or ticket as issued from the machine is given to the truckman in charge of the box of patterns, the package of screws and the case of books, and when the truckman delivers the said check to the stevedore in charge of the cars, the said stevedore sees from the check that the merchandise is to be loaded into car 4, as indicated on the said check.

The numerals 27, 28, 29 are consecutive and indicate the packages as received in regular order during the day. The lettersD in front of the consecutive numerals 27, 28, 29 indicate a series which series usually consists of about two hundred and fifty consecutive nu merals, after which the series changes to another letter in the alphabet, and again commences at 1 to run to 250 to again change to the next following letter in the alphabet, and

so on.

Now, the merchandise is placed into the car 4., and the stevedore in charge of the car deposits the check I into a box J temporarily placed upon the car, it being understood that each car is provided with a like box or receptacle for receiving the tickets of the freight loaded into the respective car. When the several cars have been loaded and the floats are ready to be taken to the railroad station and run onto the railroad tracks, then the several boxes are removed from the cars and the tickets in each box are looked over by the clerk in charge of the station and as each of the tickets in the respective car must have, it the car is properly loaded, a row of numerals corresponding to the temporary number given to the car, it will be readily seen that any error or mistake in loading can be at once detected and corrected. Thus, for instance, the tickets in the car marked 4, must all contain the row of numerals 4 at the end of each series on the several checks and it for-instance,

a ticket is found among the tickets in this box containing as end numeral 15, then the clerk at once knows that a piece of merchandise destined for Rochester has been loaded into this car 4. The merchandise thus wrongly placed in the car 4 can be at once removed from there and placed into the proper car 15 to which it belongs. In case the cars have left the receiving station and are on the roads and a mistake is then discovered, then the agent at the station at Chicago, can be notified that a certain car contains a package which must be returned to Rochester. In case the train has not gone very far from the receiving station, it may be intercepted at an intermediate station, the package removed from the respective car and returned to the receiving station to be again shipped to the proper place.

It is understood that the temporary number or station number given to the car while loading the same at the receiving station, temporarily takes the place of the regular car number, but on the records of the depot this temporary number is noted down with the regular car number, so that after the cars are in transit any desired car can be pointed out which had a desired temporary station number.

It is understood that the printing apparatus F cuts 0% and ejectsa ticket I and at the same time rings a bell which is the signal for the truckman to take the ticket from the machine, aud to proceed with both the ticket and the package, parcel or whatever merchandise it may be, to the car containing the number corresponding with the nu'mberprinted on the ticket, as before explained. It is the duty of the stevedore loading the car to see that the depot car number corresponds with the number on the ticket, before placing or loading the merchandise into the respective car. It will be seen that by this means a complete record is kept of the packages of merchandise loaded into the cars, and at the same time the truckman and stevedore are not liable to make mistakes in placing merchandise into the Wrong car, and in case it should happen, the package of the lost merchandise can be readily traced and finally returned to the proper place.

It is understood that all the shipping receipts are checked over in connection with the checks I from the several boxes J, and any error of the checking clerk or operator of the machine can be detected at a glance, as above explained. Thus whether through the carelessness or neglect of the stevedore or of the checking clerk, any package is loaded into the wrong car, the error can be detected and the misplaced package positively located.

My improved means have been explained in the foregoing in relation to loading freight into cars only, but it is obvious that it can be equally Well applied in loading freight into a steamer, sailing or other vessel, the operation of the means being identically the same. In

marine vessels, the compartment into which the freight is to be loaded is supplied with a,

boxJ as the ultimate receptacle of the checks or tickets I, the compartment numbers in this case taking the place of the depot car numbers as above described.

Having thus fully described my invention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent- 1. The means for securing against loss of freight consisting of a receipt or other like document containing characters indicating the car designed to receive the merchandise, a separate independent check or ticket containing duplicate characters of the ones on the said receipt so that the check and receipt control each other, and a receptacle held temporarily on the car and adapted to receive the ticket bearing the number of the car on which the receptacle is held, the ticket being deposited in the said receptacle at the time the merchandise indicated on the ticket is loaded in the car, substantially as shown and described.

2. The means for securing against loss of freight consisting of a shipping receipt, way bill or other like document containing characters indicating serial numbers and the number of the transporting medium, a separate independent ticket or check containing duplicate characters of the ones on the said receipt so that check and receipt control each other, and a receptacle placed temporarily on the numbered transporting medium to receive the correspondingly numbered checks or tickets at the time the merchandise indicated by the serial number on this ticket is placed in the corresponding transporting medium, substantially as shown and described.

3. The means for securing against loss of freight, consisting of a receipt or other like document containing characters indicating the car designed to receive the merchandise, and characters to designate the merchandise to be shipped, and a separate independent ticket or check containing sets of characters which are a duplicate of the characters on the said receipt or document, substantially as shown and described.

JOSEPH BABBI'IT MOOKRIDGE.

Witnesses:

THEO. G. HOSTER, C. SEDGWICK. 

